The January 2015 TIOBE index is out and it names JavaScript as the language of 2014. At long last, JavaScript is Language Of The Year.

JavaScript has been around for a while, but so far its performance, in the TIOBE index at least, has been mediocre. In many ways this has reflected badly on the index as it has been obvious to everyone that JavaScript, the language we all love to hate, has been on the rise since it was introduced and seems destined to take over the world.

The reason that it is TIOBE's language of the year is not that it tops the charts, but that it has increased its position more than any other language during the past 12 months. It moved 1.7% over the year. The closest other language was PL/SLQ (1.38%) and surprisingly, given all of the recent talk about its decline, Perl at (1.33%).

The big mystery when you look at the overall performance of JavaScript is why the decline in 2010? Notice that JavaScript hasn't made it back to its pre-2010 levels even now.

In terms of ranking, C is still at number one, closely followed by Java. We then have a big jump to reach the rest of the languages with Objective-C, C++ and C# forming a cluster at 3,4 and 5.

At position 6, PHP is still higher than JavaScript, which comes in at 7, having moved up from 9 over the year. Finishing the top half of the list we have Python, Perl and PL/SQL.

After this the world goes mad with MATLAB, ABAP, COBOL and Assembly. Ruby, another language much believed to be in decline, is down at number 15, sliding from 12th at the start of the year.

Here is the complete table:

Jan 2015

Jan 2014

Programming Language

Ratings

Change

1

1

C

16.703%

-1.24%

2

2

Java

15.528%

-1.00%

3

3

Objective-C

6.953%

-4.14%

4

4

C++

6.705%

-0.86%

5

5

C#

5.045%

-0.80%

6

6

PHP

3.784%

-0.82%

7

9

JavaScript

3.274%

+1.70%

8

8

Python

2.613%

+0.24%

9

13

Perl

2.256%

+1.33%

10

17

PL/SQL

2.014%

+1.38%

11

15

MATLAB

1.390%

+0.62%

12

26

ABAP

1.273%

+0.80%

13

27

COBOL

1.267%

+0.81%

14

24

Assembly

1.171%

+0.68%

15

12

Ruby

1.130%

+0.07%

16

11

Visual Basic .NET

1.074%

-0.48%

17

-

Visual Basic

1.074%

+1.07%

18

44

R

1.042%

+0.79%

19

10

Transact-SQL

0.874%

-0.68%

20

20

Delphi/Object Pascal

0.837%

+0.24%

Of course, if you put C and C++ together, then Java and the rest would be nowhere to be seen. Similarly putting Visual Basic and VB .NET together would put Basic up in the top ten.

The coming year is going to see things a little more turbulent in that Apple's introduction of Swift will disrupt the cosy group of Cs by reducing the use of Objective C. If it doesn't then there are going to be some interesting questions to answer.

And before you start to make a fuss - yes TIOBE is a very blunt instrument that doesn't measure anything much directly related to programming language use or popularity, but it has been going for a long time and it does indicate the relative importance and year-on-year changes.